Authority Figures Essay - circa 2003, Part II

[shadowkat]

3. The Watcher/Slayer relationships (Ats and Btvs)

A. Holtz/Justine vs. Giles/Buffy

Angel Season 3 remains amongst my favorites primarily for the introduction of Justine and Holtz. The show deliberately set up a subversion of the Watcher/Slayer relationship, demonstrating to the audience just how twisted and dark this relationship truly could be.
If you watch closely, you’ll see Buffy and her first watcher playing in that same LA graveyard that Holtz and Justine are playing in. Actually Holtz looks a lot like Donald Sutherland in the movie version of Buffy and Justine in some ways resembles Kristy Swanson. For those of you who missed this relationship – a brief summary: Holtz was a demon hunter/vampire hunter who wanted to destroy Angel, because Angelus murdered his entire family. He recruits Justine – a vampire hunter who has lost her sister to vampires. She is a blond who has no one. He is an enigmatic figure with a goatee and a sort of worldly view.

I experienced an odd sense of deja vue watching Giles and Buffy in the grave-yard during Lies My Parents Tell Me. Because many of the lines seemed oddly similar to Holtz and Justine’s so did the actions. Not the same. Similar.

Justine: "You should be thanking me."
Holtz: "For disobeying an order?"
Justine: "For dusting two vamps!"
Holtz: "Two vampires from whom I had told you to walk away." (Provider S3 Ats)

In this scene, Holtz is punishing Justine for dusting the vamps when he told her to wait. In later episodes, we find that Holtz and Justine have chained up vamps and are systematically torturing them.

Now jump to Lies. Buffy asks if she can kill Richard yet. Giles says no. She asks why. He says because I told you not to. You have much to learn. Holtz does somewhat the same thing with Justine.

Holtz: "We are here to determine whether or not - you - have the commitment necessary for the work at hand."
Justine: "At hand? -That's a joke, right?"
Holtz: "Why are you wasting my time?"
Justine: "What do you want from me?"
Holtz: "I just told you: commitment. Something you must now convince me you have."

Giles is also testing Buffy’s commitment. Asking her while she’s battling the vampire whether she’s willing to make necessary sacrifices. Willing, literally, to sell her soul. He never states that explicitly but it is heavily implied by questions regarding whether she is willing to let Dawn and the others die. Holtz does the same thing with Justine and later Wes, asking if they have the commitment necessary. In the scene where he’s asking this of Justine – she has a knife stuck through her hand. Holtz stuck it there to see if she could endure the pain. She does prove to be a faithful servant of Holtz’s by the way. Even to the extent that she kills him and sets Angel up to take the blame in Connor’s eyes. The action taints her soul.

B. Wes/Faith vs. Holtz/Justine

In the Faith arc on Angel the Series, Wes is shown asking Faith to break out of jail, testing her by pulling up in a street full of vampires and insulting her to get her all riled up. The alley scene in Release S4 Ats between Faith and Wesely – where Wes takes Faith, just moments after she broke out of prison, is a clear parallel to Holtz and Justine and to an extent Giles and Buffy in the grave yard in LMPTM. In that scene, Wes asks Faith if she can still do it. She says it’s no different than getting back on the biker. Grinning, he tests his theory by stopping the car and she gets yanked out by the vampires running amuck. When the vamps attack Wes, he tells them he’s not the one they want, she is. Holtz does somewhat the same thing with Justine – setting her up to fight the vamps, ordering her not to kill them at certain points, testing her prowess.

Holtz’s little speech to Justine while she has a knife that he deliberately stuck through her hand to test her commitment is similar to Wes’ interrogation of a suspect after Faith decides to go easy on the girl. Wes sticks the knife in the girl’s shoulder. Later when Faith questions Wes’ tactics, he throws her past torture of him in her face, and tears her apart with words. Very similar to how Holtz tears apart Justine, asking how far she is willing to go for him. If she is really committed enough to do anything – including cut Wes’s throat which she does in Sleep Tight. For Wes – Faith’s commitment includes her choice to drug herself and let Angelus bite her.

The parallels between the relationships seem to suggest that there is something not quite kosher about the Watcher/Slayer relationship. That maybe the idea of the fussy older gent controlling and training the young girl isn’t all for the good? And does he really have anything to teach her or is it just as Giles states in his dream to Buffy: “You have to learn not to think, this is the way it’s been between men and women since the beginning…” To which Buffy, being Buffy, merely giggles. (Restless S4 Btvs)

C. Holtz/Justine vs. Wood/Buffy

In Provider through Sleep Tight Ats S3, Holtz encourages Justine to stroke her hate, to use it to fight the vampires. To live in it.

Holtz: " Your life has been ruined. You can't sleep. Instead you wander the streets, making others pay for what happened to your sister. That's where I can help. I see your talent. And I see your hate. And I know that I can shape and hone you into an instrument of vengeance."

Wood to Buffy – . “I went through this whole avenging son phase in my twenties,
but I never found who did it. So now I just dust as many of 'em as I can
find. Figure eventually I'll get him.” (First Date)

Both Wood and Holtz live for vengeance, they nurse it. It empowers them. In a sense they use vengeance in much the same way Spike accuses Buffy of using it in Never Leave Me. Accusing her of keeping him alive in order to have enough hate inside to be the slayer. (A telling comment on Spike’s own psychosis). He’s wrong of course. Buffy doesn’t kill out of hate. She even apologizes to the vamp’s she kills. It’s her mission, her job, not her emotional release and not out of some misguided need for vengeance.

D. Holtz/Wesley vs. Wood/Giles

Both Giles and Wes fall into the same trap and both reap the same reward. Both get shut out. Just as Holtz and Wood reap the same reward – neither are killed by our ensouled vampires. Angel and Spike give them both a pass, but and a huge but here – they also let Holtz and Wood know that if they come after them again – they will kill them.

Holtz: "And was it your hands that held down my beloved Caroline as she was violated and murdered? That wrapped themselves around my son's neck and snapped it like kindling? Where yours hands that clutched at my daughter as she was turned into a creature damned for all eternity? - Angelus is in his nature. The beast will re-emerge. You've seen it. You know it. And that is why you are here. - You're afraid he's going to kill the child. - (Wes looks from Holtz to Aubrey) - And you're right. (Loyalty)

In the above speech, Holtz is questioning Wes’ resolve to protect Angel’s son Connor. He knows that Wes fears Angel will kill his son because it has been foretold in some Prophecy. But Wes is blaming himself for it and requests that Holtz take him instead of Angel. Holtz cleverly realizes there’s more going on underneath Wes’ plea and plays on Wes’ fears, suggesting that if he continues to let Connor to stay with Angel, Angel will kill him and there is nothing Wes can do. Holtz also within the speech justifies his own actions by reminding Wes of the horrible things Angelus has done to him.

Wood delivers a similar speech to Giles in LMPTM, stating pretty much the same fears. Spike is a liability, he killed my mother, a slayer. He’s dangerous to Buffy. You’re her Watcher – you should be able to control her, after all I was raised by a Watcher who was able to control my mother. Spike’s a vampire, it’s his nature, soul or no soul. Give me just a few moments alone with him and I’ll kill him. Just stall her.

Wood expertly plays on Giles’ fears – which are that Spike will in some way hurt Buffy. Fears that go all the way back to Nightmares (s1 Btvs) and Innocence/Passion (S2 Btvs). Fears that Buffy has once again fallen for the vampire and isn’t thinking clearly. So Giles does exactly what Wesley did in Sleep Tight (S3 Ats). He betrays his leader, doesn’t confide in her, doesn’t give the others a chance to figure stuff out. Both Giles and Wes have the best of intentions, but both foul up, why? Because of their watcher training. Both give in to the tempting schemes of people with vendettas.

4. Following Daddy’s Teachings : Holtz/Connor vs. Wood/Crowley
(for want of a better title)

A. Wood/Spike and Holtz/Angel

Wood and Holtz have created their own living hells. Instead of remembering their loved ones and living for them, they have made vengeance their mistress and sold their souls. It’s interesting how they both struggle with this, because they both face the same dilemma. What do you do when the monster has changed? It would almost be easier on Wood and Holtz if Spike and Angelus had been killed. But no…instead they are ensouled. Damn. Both attempt to dehumanize and demonize these creatures, turn them back into animals. Holtz through the taking of Connor. Wood through the use of the trigger. It’s interesting to note that Wood can’t attack and kill “Spike” the man who is standing in front of him, he has to trigger him – turn him into the demon, the monster who killed his mother. Once Spike becomes that monster, then Wood can torture him at will. Note Wood does not just stake Spike, no, Wood wants to rail at him, and torture him and make him into an animal. Only one problem…of the two men in the room, Wood has become the monster, Spike has become defenseless tortured and remorseful. Spike is on the ground, not fighting, in tears, in demon face and saying sorry. The “I’m sorry” startles Wood enough that he literally stops his stake in mid-motion. It’s that comment that ironically saves Spike’s life. And no, the sorry isn’t for Wood, nor should it be, Wood’s mother was killed while on duty, fighting a battle. Spike should feel no more guilty for that crime than well Buffy should feel for killing Richard or an Iraqui soldier should feel for killing an American Marine or vice versa. Things happen when you battle for your life against someone of equal skill and power. This would be like well a gunfighter feeling guilty for killing fellow gunfighter on the opposite side. “I was a vampire and she was a slayer. It’s how the game is played.” Not the same as killing a man’s entire family, not nearly. But the fact Spike says I’m sorry…is important. Because his remorse is for killing a mother, his own. The conversation starts with Spike stating I’ve killed a lot of people’s mothers…what Wood doesn’t realize is he, Spike, does feel remorse for it, the trigger, the slayers, all of it comes from the crime closest to Spike’s heart, the crime of destroying his own mother in the hopes of making her life better and having her beside him. The selfish act of turning her…is the one that haunts him. And Spike’s insightful comment that Wood is in a way doing the same thing with his mother – is enlightening.
Because Wood, like Spike, has kept his mother alive in demonized form. He’s kept the killer not the nuturer alive. He’s kept her memory alive through his vengeance. He honors her with hate. Not through the mission – if the mission was what was important to Wood, he would have told Buffy, he would have followed Buffy’s lead. But to Wood – what is most important is the vendetta. Just as Holtz believes all must be sacrificed for the vendetta. As Anya states so succinctly – Forgiveness is what makes us human. A former vengeance demon, Anya is finally beginning to get it.

In both the Holtz and Wood stories, the writers emphasize in different ways, how these men have created their own living hells. All they know is vengeance. All they know is the boot, the bat, and the bastinadata. Neither man is capable of love or peace or kindness or even compassion. They both live inside their hate. Until they are able to let go of that hate, neither has a chance. It is too late for Holtz, one can only hope it’s not too late for Robin Wood. Perhaps Wood learned something in his shrine? Perhaps not. But what makes me think he has half a chance is the fact that he had to make Spike into a monster again before he attacked him.

B. Holtz/Connor vs. Crowley/Wood

One last comparison on Wood and Holtz. Connor and Betram Crowley. The more I think about it, the more I realize in some ways that Wood is what Connor might have become if he had been raised in Utah to the age of 30 by Holtz. Wood in some ways is a 30 something version of Connor. Both are raised by men who are either vampire hunters or Watchers who teach others to slay vampires. Holtz trained Justine. Crowley trained Nikki. Both lost people dear to them and may have had pseudo-sexual relationships with the female slayer/hunter they controlled. Both played father figures to a child that they both imbued with their desire for vengeance.

Wood and Connor feel the need to demonize Spike and Angel – to see them only as the monster. They refuse to acknowledge that the soul has changed either vampire in any way. You’re the real item – Connor tells Angelus, he’s just the mask. You’re the real one, the monster, Wood rails at the triggered Spike. The souled vampires provide them with a murky puzzle that doesn’t jibe with either’s world-view. Ie. Vampires are evil murders. We kill them. End of story. Nor can they quite deal with the fact that neither vampire is the same evil being they once knew or were taught to hate. Spike and Angel don’t help, they make things even murkier by repeatedly saving Connor and Wood’s lives.

In Orpheus S4 Ats, when Connor attempts to kill Angelus, Faith stops him – letting Connor know on more than one occasion: He attempts it? She’ll whup his ass or even kill him. In Release, when she realizes he wants to kill Angelus, she tells him to leave or else. “Are you a murderer? I am. And you haven’t given me a reason to choose you over Angelus. When push comes to shove? I’m choosing him.” Buffy literally states the same thing to Wood in LMPTM. “I’m fighting a war here. I don’t have time for vendettas. You are going after a man who no longer exists. He’s my strongest and best warrior. If you go after him again, he will kill you. More important? I’ll let him.” More important, both Faith and Buffy have made it clear to Connor and Wood where their loyalties lie. Not with vengeance, not with vendettas. And in both cases, Angelus and Spike were potential dangers, but in both cases – Spike and Angelus were working for the greater good. Connor and Wood? Not so much.

What’s most interesting about Wood and Connor though is that both have in a sense adopted their surrogate father’s calling. Wood is not Nikki’s son so much as he is Betram Crowley’s. Wood like Connor really never knew his mother. Wood’s memories of her are fuzzy at best, filled in by her Watcher, Crowley. Connor has no memories of his mother, all he knew was Holtz. Up until he enters Angel’s world – he is Holtz’s son and follows Holtz’s teachings. And like Holtz seeks revenge against Angel. They are creations of the dark father figure, the father of the biblical Old Testament, the eye for an eye, Daddy Vengeance.

Connor and Wood share one more thing in common, both had mothers that may have sacrificed themselves for their welfare. To spare their children, much as Buffy once did for Dawn. Nikki may have committed suicide by vampire, the flashback sequence in Fool for Love can certainly be read that way, and if she did, she may have done it to get her son out of the mission. She couldn’t give him up. So perhaps she hoped that by dying, her watcher would be forced to find him a good family? We’ll never know for sure. Darla clearly sacrificed herself for Connor, taking her own life to ensure his.

At any rate, one can’t help but wonder if Wood will follow Connor’s path towards forgiveness, making him human, or follow Holtz’s path towards vengeance, making him like Holtz, a monster. Can Wood break away from being Crowley’s son and living up to Crowley’s image, to become his own man? Or will he just continue to follow the path that Crowley laid out for him?

5. The Sick Mother and The Martyred Mom (Anne/Joyce, Buffy/Nikki)

Up until now, this essay really has been about the “father” or “patriarchial” authority figures as represented by the Council, Watcher’s, Giles, and other individual characters in both Btvs and Ats. How it is important to somehow break away from the father’s path and set your own course, to not become your father or live your life for your father’s approval.

What about Mom? Doesn’t she play a role? Isn’t she an authority figure as well? In some senses she could be described as first and last authority. My mother recently told me that no matter where I was in my life, she felt she was standing alongside me. That she felt my pain and my triumphs. That a mother, she said is more than just a friend or a parent to her child, she is always connected. That child was a part of her. Some mothers divorce themselves from their children. But most, in her experience, did not. At least not metaphorically. This reminded me of Joyce Summers in Btvs, who has not divorced her children. Even though she’s dead, she still appears to Buffy in her dreams. Joyce is in a sense Buffy’s first and last authority – her touch-stone. The counter to Giles and the Watcher Council. So in a way it is fitting to end a four part essay on authority figures with an analysis of the characters’ relationships with good old mom.

Btvs and Ats describe at least four sick mothers and three mom’s who gave up their lives for their children. These mothers are: A) The sick mothers: Anne (Spike’s Mom), Joyce (Buffy’s Mom), Kralik the Vampire’s mother in Helpless, Lilah’s mother who has Altziemer’s, B) The Tough Sacrificial One’s : Nikki (Wood’s mother) Buffy (Dawn’s surrogate mom), and Darla/Cordelia (Connor’s mom and surrogate).

Before I start: A few quotes – from an old thesis I wrote on Celtic Folklore, that concerns the mother/son relationship in mythology:

J.J. Bachofen states in Urreligion und antike Symbol, Vol. 11, pp. 356-58 : “She comes before the creature (the masculine principle) appearing as cause, the prime creature, but is known in her own right. In a word, the woman first exists as a mother, and the man first exists as a son.”

Jung in Man and His Symbols, p.17: “In the Middle Ages long before the physiologists demonstrated that by reason of our glandular structure there are both male and female elements in all of us, it was said that ‘every man carries a woman within himself.’ It is this female element in every male that I have called the ‘anima’. This ‘feminine aspect’ is essentially a certain inferior kind of relatedness to the surroundings, and particularly to women, which is kept carefully concealed from others as well as from oneself. In other words, though an individual’s visible personality may seem quite normal, he may well be concealing from others – or even from himself – the deplorable condition of ‘the woman within’.”

These quotes describe how one may internalize the sick mother, how she becomes inside the psyche both a creature of light and darkness.

A. The Sick Mother

The sick mother first comes up in the episode Helpless, Season 3 Btvs, written by David Fury. In that episode, the vampire Kralik kidnaps Buffy’s mother, Joyce, in order to get Buffy, who has been rendered helpless by Giles, to play a game. The game of course was called the Cruciaturium – a coming of age test devised by the Watcher’s Council to test the mental acumen and abilities of the slayer. The idea was to render a slayer physically helpless through drugs, place her in an old house with an insane vampire and see how she defeats him. Of course things go horribly wrong and Kralik gets free, kidnaps Joyce, and starts his own version of the game. Kralik’s version is that he sires Buffy so that she will eat her Mom just as he ate his. Kralik apparently had been horribly abused by his mother as a child, as a result became a rapist and murderer of women before being institutionalized. When he was turned into a vampire – he went home and ate Mom, paying her back for all those years of torment. Buffy, in a riff off Little Red Riding Hood, manages to defeat Kralik by tricking him into drinking a glass of holy water to wash down his psychotic medicine. The holy water eats him from within. She saves her mother, whose photographs have been plastered around the house.

Another sick mother figure we hear about but are never introduced to is Lilah’s mother in Sleep Tight and Loyalty (Ats S3) The woman with Altzheimers, whom Lilah supports, occasionally talks to, but seldom mentions. Lilah both loves and despises her mother. Her mother was never really supportive of her. And Lilah fears becoming dependent and helpless like her mother, so clings desperately to her career. Staying as far from home as possible. For Lilah – her mother is a burden and a nightmare.

Approximately four years after Helpless, in Season 7 Btvs, we are introduced to another vampire’s mother, this time it’s Spike’s. Spike like Kralik, has serious mother issues. But unlike Kralik, Spike adored his mother. While he was alive, he had been the center of her universe. She feared for his welfare, yet kept him close, partly due her widowed status and partly due to her illness which is TB. TB, a disease that causes the coughing up of blood, has been associated with Vampirism. Apparently it was passed onto relatives through coughing or blood. Drusilla sired William, turning him into the vampire Spike. Not wishing to leave his mother, Anne (according to close captioning), behind or see her die, William sires her. The new vampire isn’t all that happy with him. She rails at him. Tells him he’s nothing. That she never loved him. That she never wanted him. That she couldn’t wait for him to leave the house. And barely tolerated his poetry. Then she attacks him until he is literally forced to destroy her. Once he does, she has the oddest look of peace on her face. For over a hundred years, Spike has internalized his mother’s words, believing that she didn’t love him, believing the words over the acts. Believing the demon over the mother he once knew. Because Spike the soulless demon, cannot understand why she would rail at him.
As a result Spike internalizes the negative image of his mother, the vampire. Just as Kralik internalized the mother who abused him.

It’s not until Spike is forced to relive this memory that he begins to understand it. He begins to understand his mother and realizes that she did love him, her actions prior to her death prove that. The demon’s words in no way changed that love. The realization enables him to come to terms with the demon within.

Buffy comes to a similar realization regarding Joyce. Joyce in many ways is similar to Anne (Spike’s Mom). She loves Buffy. Buffy until Dawn pops into the picture, is an only child. There is no father figure to compete for Mom’s attention. When Dawn does pop into the picture, Buffy resents Dawn. Wants to have that close relationship with her mother again. Then Mom gets sick and Buffy finds out Dawn is the key to the universe. Frightened for both of them, Buffy moves back home. And further away from Riley. Over the course of Season 5, Buffy spends more and more time with Mom. She goes to the hospital with Mom. She neglects slaying duties for Mom. Mom becomes the center of her universe. To the extent that Riley starts seeing vamp trulls in order to feel needed and eventually just leaves town completely. Mom, like Ann, has become sick, she is the invalid. In and out of hospitals. Then she gets all better and Buffy begins to focus on other things. Only to come home and find her mother lying on the couch dead from a brain aneurysm. When Dawn does a spell to bring Joyce back, Buffy chides her at first but then turns all enthusiastic, about to open the door, when Dawn rips the picture, realizing what they’ve brought back is a monster. Buffy begins to slowly shut down after that, literally going catatonic in Weight of the World. (S5 Btvs)

Both Spike and Buffy are devastated by the loss of their mother. Unlike Kralik and Lilah, neither hated their mother. But there’s small graduations in each regarding how they view her mother and she related to them. Of the four, Buffy had the most nurturing and healthy relationship. Joyce did not make Buffy her entire world, she also worked, had friends, went out, dated. Buffy was not the center of Joyce’s universe. Nor for that matter was Joyce the center of Buffy’s. But of course, Joyce and Ann are separated by 100 years and during the Victorian Age, women were dependent on the male heads of their households. If a woman was widowed and an invalid, she would have been highly dependent on the love and care of her son. Heck, when Joyce got ill she became very dependent on Buffy – going over grocery lists, having Buffy run errands for her, if it weren’t for Buffy – Joyce would have had to stay in the hospital longer. So part of the difference is time period. The other part is gender. There is a very different dynamic between mothers and sons and mothers and daughters. I’m not sure how much of this is societal and how much of it is psychological. But it does appear that women do not internalize their relationships with their mothers to the extent that men do. For women, the psychological relationship is with the father. At any rate – in Btvs, I think Spike may be to Joyce and Buffy herself what Angel is to Giles and Hank. Angel represents the father issues. Spike represents the mother issues.

The sick mother represents different things to women and men. For women, she is a burden, an extension of us, and a fear of what we may become. Take Lilah for example, she is terrified of becoming like her mother, the burden of it wears her down, yet she can’t quite free herself. To Buffy, the burden is somewhat larger in that when Joyce dies, she must become a mother to Dawn, she must take on Joyce’s role – a role she neither wants nor needs. But over time comes to accept like a second skin. Buffy yearns to be like Joyce, yet also fears it, as is expressed in her comments to Principal Wood in both Lessons and later in LMPTM, “I’m not Dawn’s mother. What? Do I have Mom hair?” (Lessons) And “normally being compared to someone’s mother isn’t something a woman wants to hear, but in this case I’ll take it as a compliment.” (LMPTM). In HIM, Buffy describes herself as Dawn’s sister, yet towards the end of the episode, acts like Dawn’s mother, when she risks her life to save Dawn. Just as she does in LMPTM, where she tells Giles that yes, she knows Dawn is expendable, yet at the end of the episode, we see her bending over her sister, touching her bandaged forehead with concern.

For men, the sick mother is someone they feel the need to take care of, yet aren’t quite sure how. They feel the need to save her. We see this with Connor who wants to save Cordelia. Who feels both a son’s and a man’s need for her. Also with William who feels the need to protect and take care of his mother. When William becomes a vampire, his dearest wish is to make his mother one too – he sees it as means of saving her both from the illness and from the mortal coil. She won’t die, he thinks. He hasn’t abandoned her. He hasn’t left her. The folk song she sings to him is in a way a plea – don’t ever leave me William. Ironically he does, by falling into the arms of Drusilla. Gone for several days, when he returns to his house to see his mother, she’s worried sick. “Where have you been, William? It’s been days. I’ve been beside myself.” Feeling a tad guilty for abandoning her in her time of need, he comes up with the alternative, I’ll turn you into a vampire just like me. Backfires on him of course. Just like Dawn’s plan to bring back Joyce backfires. Mom doesn’t come back like the mother he loved. Instead she’s a pissed off demon who wants no part of him. Not unlike Cordelia, the demon who Connor is reunited with, who he sleeps with and who seduces him to do her bidding. In Connor’s life the dark and light maternal figures are Darla and Cordelia, Darla the vampire ironically enough is the light, virginal, nurturer who would give her life for her son, and Cordelia is the dark, devouring monster, who rejects yet draws her son close, wanting to corrupt and potentially destroy him. In Ats they’ve literally split the two. In Btvs they figuratively have by showing two sides of the same woman. In Ats, Connor is the Oedipal stage, while in Btvs, Spike is in the pre-Oedipal stage. But to grow, both Connor and Spike must eventually separate from their mothers and let go of their guilt regarding them.

While Buffy comes to terms with Joyce and her own mother issues, by in a sense taking on Joyce’s role and being a mother herself (ie. Seeing her childhood from the opposite side of the fence), Spike and Connor come to terms with their mother issues by breaking free of her, no longer feeling a)responsible for her fate or b) dependant on her love. Their self-esteem should not be based on whether or not she cared for them. They both need to become their own man, not her devoted son or tool. Some may argue that Spike has already begun to do that, but I’m not so sure. At the end of LMPTM, Spike tells Wood that his mother loved him, that it was the demon talking and now he is no one’s tool. What unsettles me is this one phrase: I know my mother loved me. I was the center of her universe. Now that I know that I can go on. Uhm, okay that’s great Spike. But why does it matter what she thought? Why do you still place so much importance on it? For all of his bravado, he still appears to place a great deal of his own personal self-worth upon what others say and think of him and that just can’t be healthy. Same thing with Connor, for all of his bravado, he still places a great deal of his self-worth on what others say and think. If he didn’t, Cordelia would not have as much control over him. Both the FE and Cordelia are able to control their men through their insecurities, their desires to be loved and respected. That is their achillees heel. As M-L Von Franz states in Man & His Symbols, p. 186-187: “Within the soul of every man the negative mother-anima figure endlessly repeats this theme: ‘I am nothing. Nothing makes any sense. With others it’s different, but for me…I enjoy nothing.’ These anima moods cause a sort of dullness, a fear of disease, of impotence, or of accidents. The whole of life takes on a sad and oppressive aspect. Such dark moods can even lure a man to suicide, in which case the anima becomes a death demon.” This is what has been happening inside Connor and Spike, their negative mother-anima is eating them alive. Anne and Cordelia act as a type of emotional vampire, feeding on their sons weak points, stroking their egos, pushing their buttons to get them to work their will. When these women reject Connor and Spike, the two sons reel from the rejection, internalize it, and act it out on those around them.Until they are able to come to grips with her, it is unlikely either will break free of the externalized version’s grasp completely. And while Spike’s definitely made some progress regarding this, I don’t think he’s nearly as together as he thinks.

B. Tough Love – Dying for My Child

The counter to the sick mother is the martyr or St. Joan. This is the mother who dies for her child. She’s not the emotional vampire who keeps the kid by her side with her illness, rather she sacrifices herself for the kid’s own good. As Dawn states in HIM S7, by dying, he’ll always remember someone loved him enough to die for him, to sacrifice their life for his.

Nikki Wood tells her four old son at the beginning of LMPTM, that it’s all about the mission. She loves him, but her mission, her calling comes first. At the time, it is pouring down rain and she has just fought Spike to a standstill. Spike disappears and Nikki with a great deal of relief lets her son reveal himself. Later, jumping to Fool For Love S5, Nikki fights Spike in a subway. She appears to have the upper hand and is about to dust him, but something happens and Spike is suddenly on top, Spike kills Nikki. A twist of fate. Did Spike out-fight Nikki? Was he truly the better fighter here? Or …did Nikki merely give up? The fight in some ways reminds me of Robin Wood’s fight with Spike years later – when he is bashing Spike’s face in and Spike is doing nothing to stop him. Barely even putting up a fight. I can understand why Buffy would be worried. There was a point in time, not that long ago, where Spike literally begged her to kill him. (Never Leave Me and Sleeper S7). But unlike Nikki, Spike doesn’t give up, he turns the tables and defeats Wood. Yet does not kill Wood. I remain convinced, based on the evidence provided that Nikki committed suicide that night. And it wasn’t something she came up with ahead of time. I think it probably just occurred to her in those final moments of the fight – here is my chance to free my son and myself from the mission that is swallowing our lives. If I die, he will be free. He will not be put in danger like he was tonight. The best thing I can do for him is to die for him.

Connor’s mother does practically the same thing. Darla. A Vampire. Decides to stake herself so her son can be born, because life cannot be born from something that is dead. Also she fears what will happen once he is gone from her, will the love she feels for him disappear once he is born? Is it his soul that fills her with love? A similar question arises with Spike by the way, could Anne love her son without a soul? Was it Anne’s soul that filled her with motherly love? Spike seems to believe this. He appears to believe that soulless his mother could not love him or anyone else. Just as Darla appears to believe that soulless she would not love her son, rather she’d devour him. Is this true? Was it true for Angelus? Did Angelus stop loving Connor when he lost his soul? The writers never quite answer this question. Darla doesn’t want to take that risk. She does not want to risk the fact that once Connor is born, she’ll want to eat him like some ravenous spider. So she pleads with Angel to ensure Connor has a better existence than they did and does not live a life without love. Her gift to Connor is her death. (Lullaby, S7 Ats).

Buffy also makes this decision in The Gift, S5. Giles tells her if Dawn is bled the only way she can close the portal is by killing her sister. Buffy blatantly refuses to do this. It would in her mind at least be akin to killing her own child. They share the same blood.
It is however what Glorificus the evil mother would do. Glory would kill Dawn to live. And Glory in fact tells Dawn that Buffy will kill her to save the world, because that’s the only way Buffy will be able to save the world once the ritual is started. The dimensions won’t close until Dawn stops bleeding. But Buffy takes the third option. She sacrifices herself. It’s her calling after all not her sister’s. If anyone should sacrifice themselves to save the world it should be her. They have the same blood. So Buffy jumps, doing the one thing that would never have occurred to Glory. Glory the evil mother – sacrifices her child to live. Buffy sacrifices herself, so her child can live.

Yet, as Buffy learns in Season 6, it is far harder to live for one’s children than to die for them. The day to day tasks of mothering are far more strenuous. So when she returns to the earth, she must take on the duty of teaching Dawn how to live in a difficult world and see the beauty of that world as opposed to protecting her sister/child from the darkness. As great a thing as it is for the mother to sacrifice herself, it is sometimes far more empowering for her to find a way to live. As Buffy states to Dawn in HIM, no one is worth dying for, it’s not your death that makes you memorable, it’s your life. Or as she tells the Guide in Intervention S5– Death is no gift, my mother recently died and believe me I don’t see that as a gift. In a way she’s come full circle.


Conclusion

When we grow up, we begin to pull away from our authority figures. We establish egos and super-egos separate from theirs. No longer do we need them to guide us or tell us how to behave or what to do. The first step is to deal with the parts of our parents we’ve psychologically internalized and in order to do that we often have to deal with their external representations. Once that step is completed, we may find ourselves taking over their roles. And perhaps, if we are lucky, learning from our parents’ mistakes, and placing our own imprint upon those roles.

But our parents aren’t our only authority figures; we also have to deal with external role models such as employers, teachers, disciplinarians. Some of whom may be helpful guides, some harmful. The Watcher Council is possibly one of the more harmful ones. It may not have always been that way, although from what I’ve seen of the shadowmen, I’m tempted to believe it was. Rebuilding it – is not the answer. No more than the answer is to rebuild or copy any authority that leads us down a negative path. Rather taking the portions of it that were positive, assuming you can find any, and melding them with new better methods may be the best route.

The same thing goes for Connor and Wood and how they decide to emulate their authority figures and role models. They can either follow the teachings of their surrogate fathers, or set their own paths. Rebel. Find a new, better way to live. Connor appears to be doing this on Ats, we can only hope Wood will learn to do the same.

I believe questioning authority can sometimes be a good thing. Figuring out when and how to do it is the hard part. It is equally important to figure out which lessons to follow and which to ignore. If we follow all of them, we are merely parrots, automatons, robots. If we follow none of them, then we are rebellious youths, vampires, fools. If we can figure out a middle ground? Then we have matured, we’ve become our own masters, we’ve triumphed over our id, developed our own super-ego and we will have our own free will.